Voluntary Madness
by LunarFlare14
Summary: She signed up for this. So why did she hesitate? It was all there for the taking. But still... An internal monolouge at the end of the Shivering Isles Main Quest.


I don't know why but I hesitated to put the staff in the Font.

I knew Sheogorath told me too. I was his servant, though I was probably the only remotely SANE person in this land. Or at least I was when I came. Before I became the Duchess of Mania. Before I had killed another, merely because I was told. I wanted my prince back. That was it, this is not how I wanted it to end. I most be insane for even coming to this place, for ever setting foot in the Isles. He had morphed from old to young and ugly to handsome at will. It was in his bones to change as he did. Now I sounded like that man who helped me get here. I had killed the gatekeeper and traveled through Mania. I found it to my liking. He made me go on TWO errands: one for his Duke and another for his Duchess, who turned out to be screwing behind Sheogorath's back. I hadn't like Thalden, not as much as Syl anyway. Then she betrayed my Lord.

My prince told me to do this, for the Shivering Isles I must. I wanted to obey. But I resisted. I would have to fight him. I thought about it and almost giggled, perhaps perfect order was another kind of insanity. He was my prince. My TRUE prince. I did not like him in the least. Sheogorath was supposedly a terrible imitation, but in my opinion it was the other way around. Jygallag would not see the beauty of this world the split yet wholeness that gave the broken minds… Peace. Of a kind anyway. Any kind of peace is better then order for them. I think it's time to face a few fact: I'm not a Daedra. I'm a disgrace to the Nord race and females in general for submitting to my prince without so much as a 'Why'… I guess I'm not really anything now. I'm a contradiction. An oxymoron, the Madgod who is not mad. Just misguided perhaps. Doing as I'm told… No matter what. Pushing the button even though it will kill those adventurers, questing into toxic caverns and ingesting a poisonous addictive drug knowingly, interrogating and executing traitors, taking the throne of the Madgod, all those crazy stunts in his name. Why? Loyalty? Glory? Benefits and title? No. We're facing facts.

I loved him.

I was crazy to hope he'd love me. He was new, and strange and wonderfully terrible. Perhaps I'm not a sane as I first let on. I wonder if insanity could be a sane reaction to an insane world. An adaptation. Nords are prided for being adaptive. I wanted to see the world as he saw it. He had first looked at me with such a fiery stare. It was hard to put an emotion to it. But it had generated this warm fondness. At first I only fancied him. Then I craved his presence. Just to kneel before him was enough. I was his sword to wield as he saw fit. I let him use me as he saw fit, and he never abused that power in my eyes.

I was drawn to him like a moth to flame. He sent his strange door into my world and I found it in my darkest hour. It drew me in even as the guard screamed his protest. I came to him and he pulled me in. I love his world in it's quixotic madness. It is full of both life and death, sorrow and rapture. Both existing and not at the same time.

I was in over my head before I could say no. And if I'd know back then this would be the way it ended… I'd do it all the same. I wonder what the Nine are thinking right now, this war must have drawn their gaze for a instant at least. I'm sure I have been declared among the 'Fallen'. I am beyond their mercy. And that's okay. Where the Nine would cast me aside he embraced me. I remembered the blessings of my prince and smiled.

Blessed are the Madmen, for they hold the keys to secret knowledge.

Blessed are the Phobic, always wary of that which would do them harm.

Blessed are the Obsessed, for their courses are clear.

Blessed are the Addicts, may they quench the thirst that never ebbs.

Blessed are the Murderous, for they have found beauty in the grotesque.

Blessed are the Firelovers, for their hearts are always warm.

Blessed are the Artists, for in their hands the impossible is made real.

Blessed are the Musicians, for in their ears they hear the music of the soul.

Blessed are the Sleepless, as they bask in wakeful dreaming.

Blessed are the Paranoid, ever-watchful for our enemies.

Blessed are the Visionaries, for their eyes see what might be.

Blessed are the Painlovers, for in their suffering, we grow stronger.

Blessed is the Madgod, who tricks us when we are foolish, punishes us when we are wrong, tortures us when we are unmindful, and loves us in our imperfection.

I am not perfect. But some how he made that okay. I owed him this much. I owed him everything.

I took a deep breath and dipped the staff in the Font.

From this moment on

I am the Madgod.

I am the Princess of Madness.

I am whole and divided.

Give me your broken, crazed, deranged, unclean, unholy, and insane, for I am their protector.

I am Sheogorath.


End file.
